How to Take Care of Tent Caterpillars

Gord: Tent Caterpillars are a problem across Canada and we brought in Jessica, the bug lady. Jessica, when people have this kind of problem in their fruit trees or maybe other ornamental tree. What do you do with them, and is it always the best thing to just cut out the tent? Jessica: Oh, will that depends on the severity of the problem. How many tents you actually have and you always want to leave a few, a little bit of the pest in order to support the beneficial that feed on this. Things like flies, and wasps and other parasite creatures that has the most source of reproduction. Gord: Okay, now you got a little nastrite right there and this things are just obviously the sun is getting them all hot bothered and active all over. Now, how do you tell if one has been parasitized because I understand that there is actually a wasp that would come down and actually lay eggs right on the caterpillar. Jessica: Well, what you are actually talking about there is attacking with flies, so it is a type of fly and what you would be seeing is a really wide egg right on the top of the head, sometimes two or three of these eggs on top of the head and the fly is a maggot prowls into the body of this and eventually emerges as a fly. Gord: What a way to go. So, if you see one of those, you should basically, are you saying leave them? Jessica: Leave that one for sure, yes because of course you want those flies to proliferate, so that you got more them around to protect your garden. Gord: Now, what else would you see happening on your fruit tree with this kind of insects around? Are we seeing other types of beneficials in your tree? Jessica: Absolutely, what you are going to see is a lot of wasps flying around the tree. There is a direct response to wasp populations and populations of tent caterpillars. So, wasp are great predators not from underrated but they do take care quite of—they do take care of the tent caterpillar. Gord: And what do they do to them? What do the wasp do to them? Jessica: They just eat them, Gord: Oh, really? They eat them all way. Jessica: They just grab them like a hotdog and eat them up. absolutely. Gord: Well, I am that happy to know. Thanks again for coming out here to sell that green information. Jessica: Thanks a lot Gord.